The Search for Happily Ever After
by idle curiosity
Summary: The curse is broken, and Will is home. Yet happily ever after is seemingly still out of reach.
1. A Life on Hold

It's the times when she's alone with her thoughts that the doubts slither in. They will wrap themselves around her resolve, doing their best to choke off her hope, much like the snakes in the Caribbean she's seen smothering their prey.

The uncertainty is slowly suffocating her.

She watches him often. She's become adept at reading him, at knowing when he will slant a glance in her direction. And she will quickly turn her eyes away, a second before their gazes would meet, to continue with whatever task is at hand with an air of unflappable calm.

She finds herself treading so very carefully around him; she fears upsetting some critical, but unseen, delicate balance.

She has long ago perfected the art of waiting. She's waited ten years. Surely she can wait a little while longer, she thinks.

She knows that Will has incredible adjustments to make. While she has created a life for herself and William, one that has carried at least a modicum of satisfaction for the past ten years, Will has left the solitary life he's known and must needs start completely over. She and William had the freedom to go anywhere in the world, should they have chosen to do so, while Will was limited to the seas of the dead, with no thought of touching land.

He does not talk about those years, but his eyes give him away. What he has seen, and what he has done, has imparted wisdom, but also darkness. He is old in his soul now.

To try and insert himself into the life that she and William have is a daunting task, she tells herself. She knew it would be, and so she tried to do everything she could to make it easier. She bought the smithy in their village, thinking that the familiarity of his old occupation would help him ease back into their lives. And she knew he would never be happy doing nothing. In the months before he came home, she talked with William, telling him everything about Will, answering every question, acquainting him with his father as best she could.

She is patient, tender, affectionate when he lets her be. To hear his heartbeat under her ear at night is her greatest joy. They have bested the curse, she tells herself.

So why is it that she doesn't feel that she's won? What she feels, when she allows herself to think about it, is that she's still running the same race for her marriage, for her life with Will, that she's run for the last ten years. The finish line has been passed. It's over, but it isn't over. It was only a partial victory.

There are times when she goes to the smithy, just to watch him without his knowing it. She peers into the darkness of the shop, sees him as he was when he was an apprentice and it sometimes brings tears to her eyes. She can see that he's found some comfort in being a blacksmith once again, and has found a link to this world through that.

She watches him with William, can see their son able to coax from him the smile that she cannot seem to, and she knows that he's has found another way to the living in his relationship with their boy.

But, somehow, there doesn't seem to be a link to this world through her. And she thinks herself inadequate.

She misses him, misses the man with ardent eyes that spoke volumes of his love for her. She misses the man who'd proposed to her on the heaving, rain-drenched deck of the _Pearl_, unwilling to wait, telling her that he'd made his choice and what was hers?

"_Now may be the only time! Elizabeth Swann, do you take me ..._"

She misses the gaze that never left hers as he lay dying, as if she were his North Star. She misses the eyes filled with despair and impossible determination as he bid her keep a weather eye on the horizon.

There are moments when she feels hope. Today, in the market place, Will stood back and watched her barter with a merchant, something she's done a hundred times at least. The smile of wry amusement on his lips had her heart soaring, and she'd smiled back sunnily. Yet it didn't last. He's once again withdrawn.

There is a panic that accompanies these moments, fear that she ruthlessly buries deep. She cannot allow herself to think that the man who'd loved her beyond reason, who'd done everything for her, is the man who doesn't seem to hardly love her at all anymore. That her ten years of love, of faithfulness, of fierce determination to see him free of the curse, are slowly turning to ashes in her hands.

So she tells herself yet again that he merely needs time, and she can wait.

She just isn't sure for what anymore.


	2. A Toast to Simpler Days

He found her, that Christmas night, in the garden, sitting on a stone bench, staring out at the sea.

The sky was a deep azure blue, her favorite color he knew. The moon was a mere sliver, low in the western sky, hanging close to the brightest star seen after sunset.

In the gathering dusk, he could see that her posture was a governess' dream, back held straight, chin held high. A gentle breeze blew her hair away from her face, carelessly lifting the strands of gold.

His approach was silent, but somehow he knew that she was aware of him coming up behind her. He passed a warm hand over her shoulders as he walked around the bench to come and sit next to her. Wordlessly, he handed her a glass of wine, and his gaze drifted over her pensive profile as she set it down next to her.

"William's having something to eat," he finally told her, breaking the quiet.

Elizabeth shook her head, a smile of amusement gracing her features.

"There are days when I can never keep him fed," she said fondly. "This must be one of them."

A silence stretched and deepened between them, and Will wondered what she was thinking as she continued to drink in the last colors of the darkening sky.

"Do you think that he was happy with his gift?" he asked, searching suddenly for something to say.

A fleeting grin curved her lips at the question. She remembered William's ecstatic joy on that very Christmas morning at finding the sword that Will had forged for him, and she nodded.

"There is nothing else that you could have given him that would have pleased him more," she turned her head briefly to assure him, before turning away again. "It's the best gift he's ever gotten, a beautiful blade, made by his father. I doubt that anything else he ever receives will surpass it, or will ever come close to its meaning."

Elizabeth's wine sat untouched beside her, and Will found himself at a loss at her continued contemplation of the most brilliant star of the western sky. He found himself wondering how many nights she'd watched it while he was away.

This was not the way things usually were between them, since he'd ended his service on the _Dutchman_. He was the silent one, she the one who would keep the conversation flowing, effortlessly. A testament to her social upbringing, he was sure, and something that he was normally grateful for. It made up for the many times when he didn't know what to say, or didn't want to say anything at all.

"Elizabeth," he finally asked in a soft voice, "what are you thinking?"

After a long moment, she smiled.

"I was remembering," she said. "It was the year we were seventeen, and it was Christmastime. We were both at the marketplace; it was your half day off. We met on the street as I came out of the bookseller's, after buying my father a new book."

"You dropped the package," Will nodded, catching up the memory. "I picked it up and returned it to you. I believe I stammered something completely foolish," he chuckled wryly.

"I made you walk with me to one of the benches in the square, and sit with me while I caught my breath," she laughed. "I complained of the heat, but I really just wanted you to stay with me for a while."

"We talked for a long time," Will said quietly. "It was one of the best days of my life, and the best Christmas gift I'd ever received."

"Ah, you refer to the kiss, perhaps?" Elizabeth teased.

_At the thunderous clearing of her maid's throat, she realized that she'd stretched the interlude for as long as she dared. They both rose to their feet, and Elizabeth impulsively stretched out her hand. Will took it in his own callused fingers, lifted it to his lips, and kissed it. Elizabeth's breath caught in her throat in wonder. He'd never done anything like that before. He straightened, and gave her a respectful little bow._

_"Happy Christmas, Elizabeth," he said, his dark eyes intent on her face._

_With that, he turned and began to walk away. She watched, and gave a little shake of her head, unable to leave the moment_

_there. She ran after him, ignoring her maid's scandalized "Miss!"_

_"Will," she placed her hand on his arm to stop him. When he turned towards her, she rose on her toes and pressed her lips to his cheek, heedless of whoever might see._

_"Happy Christmas, Will," she whispered in his ear, before turning away. He watched her hurry back to her maid, stunned by what she'd just done. He could see that Elizabeth was receiving a scolding for it, because her expression became mutinous._

"You didn't even call me Miss Swann," she arched a delicate eyebrow.

"Christmas isn't a time for propriety," he smiled.

Their amusement faded, the silence returning.

And then she surprised him once again. Finally picking up her wine, she turned towards him, holding the glass up high.

"To our most innocent youth," she toasted.

"To a time I wouldn't ever trade for anything," he raised his own wine, touching his glass to hers.

And her eyes shimmered with tears as they drank to simpler days.


	3. The Sound of Silence

She begins every day, as of late, with the same thought.

_Will you be leaving us, then?_

The sun is setting, as she makes her way down the familiar path to the beach so near to their home. She finds it fitting. Sunset, and the horizon, have been an integral part of her life for over ten years.

She knows that he'll be at the shore's end. When he isn't working in the blacksmith shop, or home with them, she'll find him there staring, sometimes for hours, out at the fathomless expanse of the sea. She will feel the unspoken turmoil in him at those times, will see the pain that she sometimes surprises in his eyes, before he lowers his gaze to hide it.

He is so very quiet. While he's never had what she would call a gregarious nature, his silence had never unsettled her as it does now.

She's walked carefully, talked carefully, not wanting to upset the fragile, unseen balance that they've achieved. There have been moments of happiness, flickers of what could be, what should be. They taunt her by showing her what the fulfillment of her deepest dreams and desires looks like, but they never last.

The minutes have bled into hours, hours into days, days into weeks, and nothing's changed. He works at the blacksmith shop, he interacts with her and their son, though never as freely as she wants, or nearly as often as she wants. Sometimes, the effort he makes is palpable.

He looks inward more than he looks at her, and she wonders what he's thinking, wonders what is it that he's remembering that he doesn't want to. For there is darkness, and there is pain so deep that she cannot see the bottom of it in his eyes.

But she's finally recognized it for what it is. She realizes that what she sees in him is what was in herself, all those long, long years ago, after she'd left Jack to the kraken.

It had been the bleakest time of her life. She'd marveled at her fall from grace, at the darkness that lay within her. She'd spent hours and hours, in Tia Dalma's hut and during the long voyage to rescue him, thinking about it all, twisting things around and around, reliving it in her head. Would she have done anything differently? _Could_ she have, and still have everyone survive?

All these years later, she still doesn't know.

She'd been lost in misery and self-loathing, caring for nothing. She'd kept her distance from Will, unwilling for him to know what was inside her, what she was capable of. She'd wondered if he would want her as she was now, if he knew what she had done. There was a part of her that longed to confess it all to him, to share the load, to ease the crushing weight of her conscience. The other part, the larger part, wasn't willing to risk it. No, she would bear the burden alone until they'd rescued Jack and she'd made it right. She'd regain her moral center first. Then they'd talk.

And she'd had no idea what her long silence was costing them. She hadn't understood that, even as she'd tried to carry her guilt alone, Will was bearing it as well, not knowing what it was.

Whatever Will has seen, whatever he has done, during those ten long years in the _Dutchman's_ service, it is grinding down his soul. Like her, he doesn't have the strength to live a full life in this world, and still carry the burden of an inner darkness that horrifies. Just as she'd felt so long ago, he fears to share it with her. And she bears it with him. Only now, she understands with a piercing clarity what it is.

Her mistake had been to underestimate Will, his love and understanding. He is making the same mistake now.

So she walks down the familiar path, certain of what she needs to do, and what she needs to say. The words have been spoken before, on the darkened deck of a small ship on its way to World's End. She knows that he'll remember them, will more than likely smile wryly to hear them come out of her mouth.

"_How long do we continue not talking?_"


End file.
